The Curse of the Brimstone Contract

by Corrina Lawson

  “Roylott has… This is…vile. Unspeakable.” She looked skyward. “Father, you are such a fool.”

  Gregor stayed blissfully silent. She crossed her arms on the desk and let her head drop to rest on them. Her skull was beginning to pound.

  “It is not literally unspeakable, as otherwise we couldn’t discuss it,” Gregor said.

  She raised her head, ready to snap at him, but his expression was so bland that she leaned back in the chair and laughed. “My life is absurd.”

  Her stomach picked that exact moment to rumble. As she rubbed her temples again, she tried to track how long it had been since she had eaten.

  “Are you hungry?” Gregor snapped to attention.

  “Of course, I am bloody hungry! All I have had in the past twenty-four hours has been a glass of brandy.”

  His face fell, and he looked around the room as if expecting food to suddenly appear out of the air.

  “Gregor, is there any food in this house?”

  He straightened. “You know, I haven’t the faintest idea.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Quite. I will endeavor to find some sustenance for you, er, us.”

  He swept out of the room before she could say another word, and she heard the heavy front door open and then close a minute later. He paced back into the room, his expression smug.

  “I have sent someone to fetch us a hot meal.”

  “Good.” Her stomach rumbled again. “Now, tell me, what is brimstone and why is it all over a contract to sell a soul?”

  “Brimstone is a common name for the element sulfur. Though it usually has no odor, it can sometimes faintly smell like a match catching fire. Sulfur is also used in heating rubber to strengthen it, rubber that is then used for steam vehicle tires.”

  “I hardly think that has anything to do with my father’s soul.”

  “Using sulfur in rubber was what led to the discovery that brimstone could hold magical energy.”

  Even tired and starved, her brain realized what he’d really said. “My gloves and Lady Grey’s scarf were dusted with brimstone.”

  “Yes, and I would guess the cravat as well. They were bespelled to commit murder. Quite ingenious, though twisted.”

  She rubbed her temples. “But why? The contract says Roylott will make the business thrive, but the murders killed our business, and now Roylott himself is out of a job. This makes no sense.”

  None of it made sense. She wondered if she had been dreaming since Lady Grey’s death. Or, if she were dead or unconscious from breaking into the safe and imagining all this.

  Gregor’s kiss, however, had seemed very real.

  She stumbled to her feet as a loud thud echoed into the room.

  “That’s only a knock at the front door. Become comfortable, Joan, that is our food.”

  She moved from behind the desk, away from the hated contract and onto a lounge set under the window. The drapes were closed, but light entered through a slit in the curtains. She pulled them back to see the world had turned grey and murky while she’d slept and learned of horrible things.

  A thick fog had settled from the ground to the second and third stories of the homes on the street. She could not see clearly past a few feet in front of the manor. Come dark, there would be no navigating the night without a powerful lantern.

  And with the fog, there was no knowing exactly what time it was. I am trapped in a world of grey with no way out.

  Gregor strode into the room. The odor of chicken, gravy and potatoes made her nearly weep with relief. He carried two steaming pies baked in cheap tin, set on a pewter tray that definitely was not cheap. The silver utensils were of similar quality.

  She had no idea where the pies had come from so quickly and did not ask. The crust was flaky, full of flavor, and the peas, carrots and chicken inside were piping hot. She set to eating, determined to at least do something that would make her feel better.

  After a few moments of silence, Gregor pushed his nearly empty pie tin to the side. “I do feel much refreshed.”

  He poured them glasses of liquid from a decanter set on a small round table in the corner.

  “Is this brandy?” She took the glass he offered.

  “Only a red wine, though, strictly speaking, we should drink white with chicken. But red is what we have.”

  She sipped and was glad it didn’t burn as the brandy had. “Gregor, you have to back up for me. We spoke of selling souls and contracting souls, but we know Roylott is human, not the devil. So what is a soul? Some sort of magical element in a person?”

  “You have just asked a question that the great philosophers of the world have been trying to answer since the dawn of time.” He settled himself into an armchair, hands in a steeple, just as he’d done when he’d heard her pleas to accept her case.

  “You obviously know, since you know that soul stealing can be done. So tell me.”

  She finished the pie and wiped her face, wishing she had a mirror to make certain gravy hadn’t splattered on the elegant dress.

  “Each person seems to possess a life force,” he said, emphasizing each word. “Let’s say we are talking about you, as you are a powerful mage. Your body is infused with energy, absorbed through the sun. You are bursting with it. It’s beautiful and powerful.”

  He paused, as if making sure she was still listening.

  She blushed at the compliment. “I am following so far.”

  “Good. I told you that mages can absorb solar energy and re-channel it, and that the waste product of this is mage coal. Well, there is another forbidden way to absorb energy: to take it from another person. That energy is exponentially more powerful and concentrated than solar energy.”

  “Which is why someone would want to steal it.”

  “It’s not so easy as all that. This life energy, this soul, as it’s called, is bonded to a person. In order for the energy to be useful to someone else, it must be given freely and a spell must be cast. Naturally, most people don’t wish to do that. Or, theoretically, it can be ripped from the person, but that requires more power than any mage has ever displayed.”

  “And since most people believe that mages are only found among the upper classes and are uneducated in all that you are teaching me, most people would not understand how soul stealing works.”

  Gregor nodded. “But somehow Roylott acquired not only the knowledge to become a powerful mage but also the way to properly acquire a soul. Hence, the contract.”

  “And since my father loses some of his life force, literally, every time Roylott takes a piece of his soul, that accounts for his fits.” She sat back on the couch, frowning. She should be so angry. She was. But knowing the source of her father’s illness felt as if a huge weight had been removed from her shoulders. “Can my father recover? Could he be whole again?”

  “He would have to spend years simply sitting in the sun to reacquire enough energy to heal what was lost. And if he was not a mage in the beginning, that would be impossible.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Joan. If he were a powerful mage, he would not have needed to sign the contract. I fear his condition is irreversible.”

  “There’s nothing to be done for him?”

  Gregor looked away and finished his glass of wine.

  “Damn you, don’t lie to me, Gregor Sherringford. There is at least one other option.”

  He stood and began pacing. “The only way to heal your father is for Roylott to voluntarily return what he took from him. But since returning your father’s soul could kill Roylott, I do not see him as giving it up, even if he’s arrested.”

  She stood. “That’s the only result of all this? Roylott arrested and my father still an invalid?” She shook her head. “Krieger & Sims is destroyed irrevocably. Our business manager has committed at least two murders and will be exposed as someone who used magic to kill. Even if Inspector Davis and Colonel Moran do not shutter our doors forever, potential customers will be far too afraid to buy our clothing.”

  “When you came to me
, you asked me to solve Lady Grey’s murder. You said you must have answers. Now you have them.”

  He held out his palm, flat, as if to emphasize that what he had given her was all he had to give.

  “Answers.” Her shoulders sagged. “So I did. Emet is what you gave me.”

  “Emet?”

  “The Hebrew word for truth.” She rolled her shoulders, remembering how she’d indulged in a long crying fit just last night. Grief was over. A task was at hand. “So, Roylott is in hiding? How do we catch him?”

  “I was thinking that—”

  A loud thud sounded in the hallway, from the direction of the front door. Gregor rushed out of the room, a pistol in his hand. She followed at his heels.

  Sir August Milverton stood in the front doorway, a heavy cane in one hand, a gun in the other.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You are coming with me, Joan.”

  Sir August leveled a very strange pistol at Gregor. The copper-plated weapon had an extra-long barrel with a glass sight at the edge. The trigger and its guard were twice the usual size and another sight, several inches tall, sat above it.

  Gregor’s handgun looked like a toy next to that weapon.

  “I suggest you put down your gun,” Sir August said. “This is one of the few items left to me by my brother. I won’t miss.”

  “Neither will I,” Gregor said.

  “Give me my fiancée back and you can live,” Sir August said.

  “I’m not anyone’s to give back.” She should be scared. Sir August might easily turn the gun on her. Perhaps after nearly dying last night, she had moved past terror or had grown used to being threatened with death.

  That was a horrible thought.

  “Stay back. I will handle this,” Gregor said.

  “I’ve no doubt of that, but I’m not going to stand here and watch you two kill each other.” She stepped between the two men, right in the line of fire. “I’m staying with him, Sir August, so you will have to shoot us both,” she said, surprised at how calm she sounded.

  He pounded his cane against the floor. “I will not have this defiance. I’m offering honorable marriage. What can that one possibly offer you?”

  “Truth.” She sighed. “Which, I admit, leaves a sour feeling in my stomach, but it must be faced.”

  He scowled.

  “You’ve had experience with hard truths. You don’t deny them,” she said. “Put your gun away, Sir August. You don’t want to be a killer.”

  That was a guess, but he had been so careful not to use physical force against her. He wanted her to like him, and he wanted them to have a friendly relationship. He had tried to be kind, in his way. He was angry, lonely and still grieving.

  Again, pity stirred for him.

  “I should be happy to shoot him.” Sir August held the gun steady on Gregor.

  The pity vanished. “And then your sisters and the rest of your family will be completely ruined when you are killed.”

  “What does it matter if I cannot save them by marrying you?” he snarled and focused past her. “You’ve no right to interfere in my marriage, half breed.”

  “An interesting insult for one who planned to marry a Jew,” Gregor said.

  “I hired him to find out who murdered Lady Grey and why. So he has every right, Sir August, to be involved. I’m his client and he has exceeded my expectations. He has been able to sort out why my father has fits and—”

  She broke off, remembering what Sir August had told her about the ability to sense mage energy as his gift. That was how he had discovered her when no one else had.

  Anger stiffened her. She clenched her jaw so tight that her teeth scraped against each other.

  “You bloody bastard.” She advanced on him, heedless of the gun. “You knew. You knew something magically was wrong with my father all the time.”

  Milverton lowered his gun. “Joan, that is absurd—”

  “You knew what ailed my father.” Now it all became clear why her father had agreed to the marriage. “You blackmailed him with that knowledge. That is why he agreed to our match. You blackguard. You vile, contemptible—”

  She nearly walked right into the extra-long gun barrel. Sir August lowered the weapon to his side.

  “I never blackmailed your father,” he spat out. “He was eager to get you out of that place and away from Roylott’s influence. I offered marriage to save you!”

  “To save yourself, you mean.”

  “To save us both. I poured my heart out to you last night. And this is my thanks!”

  “You poured your fears and dreams out to me last night, never once asking if I had any of my own! And all the while you hid the information that Roylott was a mage! You knew!”

  She clenched her hands into fists. She felt the faint stirrings of what she now recognized as her mage gift. No, she would not harm someone, not that way. She opened her hands and stepped back.

  “Killing gains you nothing, Sir August,” Gregor said. “On the other hand, cooperating with us may be useful to you.”

  “She calls me a blackguard. That’s exactly what you are, Sherringford.” Milverton sneered. “Hiding in that run-down office, claiming to have a higher purpose than magic, acting morally superior and, all the while, relying on your family’s money and influence to solve your cases.”

  “It takes brainpower to solve crimes, far more than it does money and influence,” Gregor replied. “Pray put away your weapon and your anger, Milverton. All it will gain for you is ruin. Death, you could face. Ruin, no.”

  Joan reached out and took the weapon from Sir August. Frozen, he did not object. She cradled the gun against her chest, surprised at how heavy it was. And there was something else, some faint stirring of power emanating from it.

  “Your brother’s gun is beautiful work,” she said.

  Sir August leaned heavily on his cane. “And I appear to be the same kind of fool as he, for I can’t even use the weapon, even to save myself. You were my last hope, Joan. Now I will not only be a pariah but a laughingstock. ‘Everyone, look at Sir August Milverton who was made a fool by a Jewish seamstress.’”

  “Come, come, Sir August, it is not as bad as all that.” Gregor clicked his tongue. “You might find my brother, the Duke of Bennington, a proper ally in your ambitions to gain back the power lost by your brother’s untimely death.”

  Joan put a hand over her mouth. The Duke of Bennington? Not only was Sherringford the son of a duke, he was the brother of one of the richest and most powerful men in the United Kingdom. More, the Dukes of Bennington were renowned for their strong magical abilities.

  She looked down at her dress. Who did this properly belong to? His sister-in-law. The duchess? She was dressed in a duchess’s clothing?

  “The woman has plenty of dresses, Joan,” Gregor said, deducing what was on her mind. “Victoria can certainly spare one, especially if it is from last season,” he added. “I admit, the stitches are not the quality of Krieger & Sims but my half brother is far too snobbish to patronize any establishment less than one hundred years old.”

  “And yet, you offer his influence to me, Sherringford. At his height, my brother Charles could have possibly had an audience with your father but that would have been a reach.” Sir August, having recovered his composure, now stood tall.

  “A man who does the family a good turn—as you will—and opposes Moran—as you already have—would be someone of great interest to my brother. He has been opposed to Moran’s appointment to root out mages among the lower classes since the beginning. By your actions in thwarting Moran, you have already aligned yourself with Richard, even if your motives aren’t pure.”

  “And yours are? You dressed Joan in your sister-in-law’s clothing, Detective. I would say your motives are more than about solving her case.”

  He assumed she and Gregor were lovers.

  Not true, but not so far off the mark.

  “He offered truth, as I said, as you did not, Sir August,” Joan said.r />
  He had the grace to look away from her.

  “Ah. Good. You understand. Now, we need your help. It will solve a dilemma,” Gregor said.

  “Oh certainly, whatever you wish,” Sir August sneered.

  Gregor ignored the hostility. “You know that Roylott is the culprit behind the murders. We need to lure him out of hiding so Joan and her father can be cleared and so Roylott does not harm anyone else. A rogue mage is a dangerous thing. On that, I agree with Moran. Milverton, you must arrange a meeting with Roylott. Tell him you know what he’s done. Offer him money if he promises to disappear and leave you and your fiancée alone.”

  Sir August didn’t respond at all. His face remained impassive and his mouth was frozen into a frown.

  “Sir August.” Joan cleared her throat. “You are a driven man. An ambitious one. But you aren’t an evil man. Roylott has to be stopped before he kills or steals someone else’s soul. If you meant what you said, that you were trying to rescue me, you will want to do this.”

  He slammed his cane down on the floor again, with enough force that the framed art on the walls rattled. Gregor moved in front of Joan while Sir August seemed torn between rage and doing what he knew was right.

  “Put away your prop, Milverton. You and I both know you’ve no need of the cane or the sword it conceals.”

  Milverton glared but set the cane against the wall. “I never spoke directly to Roylott. I avoided him and talked only with Alexander Krieger. Roylott made my skin crawl.”

  “But I will wager that you investigated Roylott,” Gregor said. “You are a careful man.”

  Sir August inclined his head. “I did. And I may be able to get a message to him. If I so desire.” He focused on Joan. “And what will happen if we capture Roylott and clear your father?”

  “What will happen between us, you mean, sir?” she asked.

  He inclined his head again.

  “Surely, all society will think me unsuitable, especially if word is passed that I ran off from your home, to say nothing of spending the night here.”

  “I never wanted you for suitability. I wanted you for the mother of my mage-gifted children.” He cleared his throat. “And for yourself as well. As I said, you are not without charm, and I need a partner I can trust to run my various business interests. Your merchant’s background is a help there, not a hindrance. The scandal would fade.”